microphone with all ceiling speakers?

  • 4 October 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 980 views

Now that sonos is playing so nicely with virtual assistants, it seems like there's some scenario where all the sonos speakers I'm putting around the house could also just include a microphone that can feed the assistant somehow. Anybody doing anything along these lines? Are there any ceiling speakers that have this ability?

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1 reply

I think we are a long ways from getting one of those. The primary issue is power and internet connection. For Alexa to work, you're going to need a speaker, mic, processor, and power...essentially. Your ceiling speaker has the speaker obviously, and you could add the mic as you suggest, but no processor or power. The existing speaker wires couldn't provide the power you'd need.

So, you either to add a battery of some sort to this ceiling speaker, or provide power. Alternatively, you could have speaker and mic cabled to a powered processor somewhere else. That would be fine and probably the way to go. Ceiling speakers are supposed to be relatively cheap since you can't take it with you when you move.

Then again though, you wouldn't be able to turn off the mic privacy...not without a ladder anyway.